Olympic report

Maggie Steffens made sure her first touch of the ball at the Olympics counted. And nearly every other one after that, too.

Water polo

Teenager helps U.S. women get win in opening match

Maggie Steffens made sure her first touch of the ball at the Olympics counted. And nearly every other one after that, too.

In her Olympic debut, Steffens, a 19-year-old Californian, had seven goals — six in the first half — and the U.S. women’s water polo team defeated Hungary 14-13 its opening match yesterday.

“It’s awesome. My heartbeat is still pounding. I’m walking through here and just kind of taking a deep breath and letting it sink in,” Steffens said. “There is so much energy running through me, I don’t really remember what happened in the first few minutes.”

The U.S. team has finished on the podium at every Olympics since the women’s game debuted in 2000, taking home a bronze in 2004 and silver in 2000 and 2008. With seven players back from the 2008 Beijing Games, the Americans are a gold-medal favorite, along with Australia.

Soccer

Colombian player suspended for punching Wambach

FIFA imposed a two-match ban on Colombia player Lady Andrade after U.S. forward Abby Wambach said she got “sucker-punched.”

Wambach said she was hit in the right eye by Andrade in the 39th minute of a 3-0 United States victory on Saturday.

Andrade said it was “an accident.”

• A Swiss soccer player was expelled from the Olympics by his country for his threatening and racist message on Twitter about South Koreans. The comments by Michel Morganella came hours after Switzerland lost to South Korea.

Morganella, 23, posted the message after playing in a 2-1 loss to South Korea on Sunday. He said in the tweet that South Koreans “can go burn” and referred to them as a “bunch of mongoloids.”

Tennis

Williams sisters, Federer advance on star-studded day

A schedule backlog transformed the Olympics at Wimbledon into a parade of Grand Slam champions, with Serena and Venus Williams and Roger Federer playing at the same time.

And all won.

Venus Williams waited an extra day because of rain to begin her bid for a record fourth gold medal in Olympic tennis, then defeated recent French Open runner-up Sara Errani of Italy 6-3, 6-1.

Serena Williams completed a July sweep of Poland’s Radwanska sisters by defeating Urszula in the second round 6-2, 6-3. Federer, of Switzerland, also reached the third round, defeating Julien Benneteau of France 6-2, 6-2.

After winning in singles, the Williams sisters began a bid for their third Olympic doubles gold medal by eliminating Sorana Cirstea and Simona Halep of Romania 6-3, 6-2.

Other former major champions to advance in singles on a cool, sunny day included Lleyton Hewitt, top-seeded Victoria Azarenka, Kim Clijsters, Petra Kvitova, Ana Ivanovic and Andy Roddick.

Television

Games have been ratings bonanza so far for NBC

Look online, and it seems everyone has a complaint about NBC’s Olympics coverage. Look at the ratings — the report card that really matters to NBC — and the games are a smash hit.

The Nielsen company said 36?million people watched Sunday night’s coverage, a larger audience for the second night of a non-U.S. Summer Olympics competition since TV began covering them in 1960.

Counting the opening ceremonies on Friday, an average of 35.8 million people have tuned in for the three nights, well above the 30.6 million who watched the first three nights in Beijing in 2008 and considerably more than the 24?million who saw the first three nights of the 2004 Athens Games.

“The ratings are surprising to me,” said Andrew Billings, a sports media professor at the University of Alabama and author of Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television.

“I thought social media would be more of a detriment than an attribute. I thought more people would not tune in because they knew the results.”

Boxing

Bad final round sends American to defeat

The U.S. winning streak in the Olympic boxing ring came to an end when light heavyweight Marcus Browne of New York lost 13-11 to Australia’s Damien Hooper.

Browne, 21, was slightly ahead entering the third and final round. But Hooper rushed out of his corner aggressively, landing a flurry of punches with a minute and a half to go that caused the referee to pause the bout for a standing eight count.

Browne’s defeat was the first loss for the United States in five fights in London.